According to a witness account, Mr Yusuf was shot in the chest as other soldiers raised their guns and shot into the air.
INVESTIGATION: Beautiful infrastructure but poor staffing, lack of drugs hinder PHC services in Borno communitiesEXCLUSIVE: Top Nigeria Customs officers enmeshed in multi-billion naira corruption scandalWhen the Police dangles its carrot, By Banji OjewaleINVESTIGATION: Beautiful infrastructure but poor staffing, lack of drugs hinder PHC services in Borno communitiesEXCLUSIVE: Top Nigeria Customs officers enmeshed in multi-billion naira corruption scandalWhen the Police dangles its carrot, By...
After a brief pause, the soldiers shot two more rounds and shouted insults before hurling the corpse of Mr Yusuf and his motorcycle into a military van and driving away. The body was later found dumped around Oduma, a village in Kachia.The accounts were horrific – of promising young men being killed and villagers watching the execution of their neighbours, fearing they would be the next victims.
While there have been several dastardly attacks in the state, PREMIUM TIMES could not trace any incident of reported terrorist activities in Tilde Fulbe during the period of the military raid.r Abdullahi’s arrest and killing haunt his family to this day. His mother, Maryam, became hypertensive. His memory still evokes pain and tears from her.
“The security agencies, as normal, may err or make mistakes in trying to get to the roots of some of some issues. In this process, they occasionally make arrests, but what is expected is that the rule of law and rule of engagement supersede any other type of action that any state actor should take,” he said.
Mr Musa and his family moved to Tilde Fulbe after the violent indigene-settler crisis of 1992 in Zangon Kataf that led to the death of scores of people. That conflict escalated into the notorious Zangon Kataf crisis, spreading beyond Kataf to other parts of southern Kaduna State which, eco-climatically, is part of the Middle Belt, a sub-humid transition zone between Nigeria’s semi-arid north and humid south.
In response to these incidents, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria issued a statement saying the frequent intrusion of soldiers into Tilde Fulbe was causing anxiety in the community. “The taxi driver did not come in time,” Mr Idris said in February. “So, we used motorcycles but we hadn’t gone far when we met the driver on the road so we transferred the patient to the car.”
He said another soldier dragged Safiyanu out of the car “despite seeing his condition and they kept beating him while the boy was crying.” The soldiers later accused Safiyanu of being a thief.INFOGRAPHIC; showing the TIMELINE of events. In a statement signed by Abubakar Siddique, a senior lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, a group of concerned Nigerians urged the government to investigate what happened in Tilde Fulbe.
“He volunteered names of five persons in the community in possession of automatic weapons including his brother. This information necessitated another raid on the village. However, on arrival at the village, troops discovered that the five suspects had all fled the village with their families. Their houses were thoroughly searched but nothing incriminating was found neither was anything taken away by the troops,” Mr Yahaya added.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed by state actors in the last decade. It is impossible to tell just how many. In a reportin 2015, Amnesty International found that Nigerian forces had extrajudicially executed more than 1,200 people during the Boko Haram insurgency.exposed how the Nigerian army took vengeance on defenceless people in Oyigbo, Rivers State.
Another witness interviewed by PREMIUM TIMES, a trader, who did not want his name mentioned, said he was present at the Islamic burial rites of victims of the “extrajudicial killings.” In December 2020, after a decade of preliminary examination, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said there was “a reasonable basis to believe” that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in the Boko Haram conflict by Nigerian security forces, as well as by Islamist insurgents. The ICC has yet to open a formal investigation.
After that incident, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeder Association of Nigeria issued a statement condemning the action of the Nigerian troops. MACBAN said the “trigger hungry” soldiers also “arrested four more young men from the same village and later shot and killed all of them in cold blood and dumped their bodies in the bush around Antai village in Kachia, along the road leading from Crossing to Maro of Kajuru LGA.
Ms Hajara, the mother of Yusuf, said life became unbearable since the death of her son. Until his death, Mr Yusuf, in his mid-20s, was a farmer, okada rider and animal rearer. He aspired to become a successful businessman to help his family and the community; aspirations that did not materialise. “He didn’t commit any crime,” Ms Hajara said. “They just shot him in an open market. And took him along and dumped his corpse for us on the road.
Our reporter confirmed from victims that on 2 January soldiers broke into two houses in the community and stole over N50,000 and bags of ginger worth several thousands of naira. At about 2 a.m. on 21 December 2023, soldiers also invaded the house of Bayero Abubakar, a 65-year-old farmer in Tilde Fulbe. Mr Abubakar told PREMIUM TIMES that he was asleep but dogs barking prompted him to get up.
Despite their denial, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the military is “interfacing and negotiating with the community and families of victims.”
Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Nigerian govt vows to rescue kidnapped victims in Borno, Kaduna StatesThe Federal Government on Saturday condemned Monday’s abduction of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, at Wurge Community in Borno and Thursday’s kidnap of school children at Kuriga community in Kaduna State and vowed to free the victims. The Government also vowed to bring the assailants to justice.
Read more »
Nigerian lawmakers demand urgent rescue of 200 abducted pupils in KadunaOver 200 school children were abducted last Thursday from a public primary school and a secondary school in Kuriga town in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Read more »
Bandits capture another 30 as IGP visits KadunaWhile efforts are ongoing to rescue about 300 residents abducted from Kariga and Goni Gora communities in Chikun Local Council of Kaduna State, bandits have between Monday night and yesterday morning allegedly kidnapped another 30 persons at Buda Village in Kajuru council area of the state.
Read more »
Rescue abducted students in Kaduna without paying ransom – Tinubu orders security personnelThe incident involving the kidnap of over 200 students in Kaduna State was deliberated extensively at the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, prompting President Bola Tinubu to issue a stern directive to the security personnel not to pay any dime to the abductors in the course of rescuing them.
Read more »
FCCPC drags Mikano to court over alleged obstruction of investigationThe Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, has dragged Mikano International Limited to a Federal High Court in Abuja over alleged obstruction of investigation. Adamu Abdullahi, the Acting Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive officer, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.
Read more »
Tinubu vows not to pay ransom to kidnappers of Kaduna students, othersIn Kaduna, north-west Nigeria, over 200 students were kidnapped last week by yet-to-be-identified bandits.
Read more »